Piazza Confindustria Bergamo by Francesca Perani

At Kilometro Rosso in Bergamo, architect and spatial storyteller Francesca Perani reimagines the square in front of Confindustria’s headquarters as a “super piazza” - a reversible public landscape where nature, technology and atmosphere become a case study for The Wave of Sustainable Design.

A Square Above a Square

In Stezzano, on the edge of Bergamo, the headquarters of Confindustria Bergamo sits within the Kilometro Rosso innovation campus, between Jean Nouvel’s monumental Red Wall and contemporary office architecture by Riccardo Minelli. For years, the square in front of the building functioned primarily as a transit area - a necessary threshold rather than a destination.

With Piazza Confindustria Bergamo, architect Francesca Perani proposes a light, reversible intervention that settles over the existing surface: a square above a square. This new horizontal layer is less an object than an architectural skin - a graphic, relational plane designed to transform movement into encounter and transit into community.

The brief was clear: address safety and comfort in an exposed outdoor space subject to strong seasonal variations, while giving Confindustria’s public face a stronger sense of identity.

Graphic Gesture and Relational Topography

The composition is organised around a large central ring that frames both the entrance from the car park and the access to the building. A continuous timber platform works as an urban carpet, catching main circulation lines and merging them with the surrounding vegetation.

Within this ring, a circular space is crossed by a single diagonal that originates from the main entrance walls. As it cuts through the deck, this diagonal folds into a double-tiered seating system capable of hosting up to 90 people - a micro-amphitheatre that can support informal meetings, talks, and temporary events.

Two additional rings complete the geometry:

a secondary loop guiding visitors toward other buildings within the technological park,
and a higher ring that holds a vapour cloud installation.

More than a cooling device, the vapour introduces a mutable sensory layer: a seasonal breath that rises and dissolves, an ephemeral gesture that fuses technology and atmosphere to create a sense of suspension.

Nature as Living Backdrop

The new piazza is designed in close dialogue with a landscape scheme by architect Sara Carrara. Three specimens of Liquidambar styraciflua form the core of the composition, chosen for their marked seasonal transformation. Their deep summer greens gradually shift to oranges and reds that echo and amplify the iconic Red Wall behind them, visually blending architecture and foliage.

At their base, a layer of light, dynamic grasses moves with the wind and changes colour throughout the year, introducing texture, motion and biodiversity. The landscape acts as a living backdrop: a soft counterpoint to the precision of the deck, and a reminder that time in a public square can be read not only on screens and schedules, but also in leaves, light and air.

Technology, Comfort and Reversibility

Technically, the project is conceived as a raised, reversible surface. The deck uses a recyclable composite timber system that floats above the existing slab, designed to emit heat during winter through integrated radiant coils. This allows the piazza to remain usable and comfortable across seasons without permanently altering the substrate below.

The graphic pattern of the planks follows a precise sequence: a darker area in visual continuity with the asphalt gradually gives way to alternating light and dark tones, echoing the nearby motorway. A symbol of speed becomes, here, a rhythm of human relations - the fast lane translated into a place to slow down.

An integrated LED lighting system, placed beneath the seating tiers and around the vapour installation, lets the square transform after dusk. Lines of light accentuate edges, reveal section changes, and underline the atmospheric presence of the vapour cloud, turning the piazza into an evening device of glow and mist.

A Super Piazza as Living Organism

Within a context defined by innovation and productive rhythms, Piazza Confindustria Bergamo introduces a different sense of time - one of relationship and shared identity. The cyclical pulse of the vapour cloud makes the passing of time tangible, while the combination of graphics, landscape and occupation brings a more human dimension back into an otherwise logistical space

As Francesca Perani describes it, the “super piazza” is an opportunity to transform a graphic gesture into a living organism: a drawing that moves, breathes with the vapour, and engages with the landscape while remaining enveloping, accessible, light and reversible.

The result is a vibrant, ever-changing environment in which technology and nature coexist to create a multisensory public space - one that merges art, architecture and environmental comfort in a single, generous horizontal plane.